François Moreau has always had a fascination with gauges. “For the majority of the 20th century, all forms of exploration, conquest of the air and the sea, and even competitive racing on land, could not have taken place without these extraordinary instruments providing vital information on everything from oil pressure to altitude.” Inspired by his love affair with instrumentation, Moreau thus set out to create his watch company. He explains, “Of course, I was immediately confronted by the fact that the majority of watches tell time with hands that revolve around the dial, while gauges provide information with a linear or ascending semi-circular reading. So I quickly arrived at the idea of combining a retrograde-minute hand and a jump-hour indicator.”

A Unique System

“Wait a minute. Hold up a second,” you say. Because you too have immediately zeroed in on the fact that a dive watch needs to have a unidirectional dive bezel to show elapsed time. And this elapsed time is read from the bezel relative to the minute hand. Which would absolutely not work in the context of a retrograde-minute hand. Well, that’s just what is so damn cool about the Hydrosphere. Moreau has created the very first dive watch bezel that functions perfectly with his retrograde-minute indicator. It works like this. The bezel features two sets of indicators. The ones in red are for use up to 45 minutes and the ones in blue are for use after 45 minutes. OK, so what exactly does this mean?

How To Measure the Decompression Level at the 15th Minute

After the Hand Indicates 45 Minutes

Yes, that’s right — the Hydrosphere, which is not only one of the coolest-looking, but also definitely the most unique dive watch around, is super functional and actually features a helium release valve. So if you wanted to take it deep saturation diving, you could decompress with the watch on without worrying that expanding helium molecules from your stay in the hyperbaric chamber would cause the crystal of the watch to pop off. Says Moreau, “We wanted to create a devastatingly charming watch but with no compromise as a diving tool.” Despite all this technical street cred, it is the design of the Hydrosphere that is so damnably arresting. Whether it’s the Pop Art Frank Stella-like colour fields of primary hues used around the minute track, the smooth UFO shape of the watch that is reminiscent of both Ikepod and Max Büsser & Friends, the entire 45mm-diameter watch (it wears smaller as there are no lugs) just looks epic and wildly futuristic on the wrist. And at a hair over USD 4,000, we can say that it is a strong value proposition as well.

The Maldives Edition

We opened our first physical retail shop in the beginning of 2021, in the beautiful Maldives. To celebrate our launch in this diving and water sports mecca, we decided with Reservoir to create a very special version of the Hydrosphere — one that evokes the sun as it dips into the water. The setting sun is a promise that it will rise once again tomorrow, bringing with it a brand-new day.

Says Moreau, “We selected bronze because this has been a material for some of Revolution’s best-selling special-edition watches, including the IWC Mark XI in 36mm with a George Cleverley 200-year-old Russian reindeer-hide strap. I recall all 150 pieces of this watch sold in 14 minutes in 2019 when it was launched. But even more because, in the context of a diving watch, bronze was always the material that [was] used to create ancient marine elements like hardware, oarlocks, latches and even propellers. The use of bronze gave our Hydrosphere the sense that it was an artifact from a Jules Verne fantasy. We loved the idea of this watch developing a beautiful patina [because it] was used in the stunning blue waters of the Maldives. To complement the bronze case, we found a dial with the perfect colour of the sunset, and complemented by a beautiful sunray effect emanating from the centre. Then, we found the perfect tone of brown ceramic for the bezel insert.”